


Twice as Bright

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 3-year-old fic, Gen, as in it was written 3 years ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then comes the crash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice as Bright

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually about three years old. It's also one of the only fics from that time frame that I'm not mortally embarrassed by, so it's being posted.

The mustang sped down the highway, easily breaking a hundred miles an hour. Dying light from the sunset reflected off the car's deep red body, giving it a nearly bloody hue. The driver gritted his teeth as he rounded a corner, wishing he could shift the car into a higher gear than it actually had. He settled for pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor, trying to coax more speed from the engine.

Alfred F. Jones, the United States of America, reveled in the speed. The roar of the engine, the wind lashing at him, the scenery flying past thrilled him. It was better than flying, better than fighting with bullets whizzing past him in defense of freedom, of justice. He laughed as he passed someone who happened to be on the same road, imagining their expression as a streak of red overtook them and vanished into the distance.

Fast driving was the only way Alfred could find any joy these days. A few decades ago, he was on top of the world, flying higher than any eagle. Not any more.

His economy was ruined, and it seemed that his people were either destitute or millionaires, with nothing in between. Citizens were furious, bickering and divided on even the most trivial issues. Storms ravaged his coastline and fires devoured the plains. Oil from an accident twenty years ago still choked the Gulf. Even he didn't know how many wars he was involved in now, but every day soldiers returned injured or dead. Politicians promised to fix everything and were elected by a desperate people, only to find themselves ensnared in a mess of old laws and party feuds. No other nation wanted to be seen associating with him, not even Matthew.

A memory rose, unbidden, from Alfred's thoughts and fears and rage. Something Arthur had told him when he was still a colony, still a child. _"A light that shines twice as bright burns half as long"_ or something like that. He had thought it stupid at the time. After all, you could get a brighter light that lasted longer by figuring out a way to make better candles, right?

But as the shouts of rioters, the cries of children whose parents could no longer afford to feed, the empty promises of officials with no power rang through his skull like some sort of twisted conscience, Alfred realized the truth of that one little sentence. The United States of America rose too fast, burned too bright, and now it was falling even though it wasn't even three hundred years old.

If he had been asked what he thought his end would be like when he was younger, Alfred probably would have gone off on some wild story about hostile aliens invading the earth and him saving the planet but somehow dying in the process. Or he would have talked about living to be really old – even older than China – and dying in a blaze of glory to be remembered like the Roman Empire. But the truth was, he never considered dying. It just wasn't an option. But now that it was happening, Alfred could only hope that when he fell, he could somehow defy the rules and survive the way Prussia did.

In the meantime, he would drive. He would drive as fast as he wanted, as fast as he could, and fuck the laws because nobody seemed to care about them any more.

By the next day, all that was left of the human form of the United States was a paragraph in the local paper, squeezed between news of yet another riot and a hurricane that took out half of New York, mentioning a crash that left no survivors.


End file.
